Reverse Rainbow
by starsinjars
Summary: :Sequel to Optical Illusions: Kaito didn't expect to be summoned to the park today; usually the chibi detective and he would meet on Saturday afternoons. Unbeknownst to him, Conan has a little something planned for him to celebrate his birthday, which provided him the perfect opportunity to express his gratitude.


Title: Reverse Rainbow

Summary: :Sequel to _Optical Illusions_: Kaito didn't expect to be summoned to the park today; usually the chibi detective and he would meet on Saturday afternoons. Unbeknownst to him, Conan has a little something planned for him to celebrate his birthday, which provided him the perfect opportunity to express his gratitude.

A/N: I don't know. Just...just read on.

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Kuroba Kaito was no stranger to the world of performance magic, his late-father being a world-renowned magician. Perhaps it was because of that profession that it influenced the image Kaitou Kid using tricks of - well, some would call it 'parlor tricks' - but Kaito liked to think it was more of tricks of the eyes as distractions take their attention.

The thing about magic in a performer's kind of sense is being able to manipulate the surroundings of the magician to give off the illusions of unimaginable feats.

Still, if one is particularly gifted with superior vision, they could clearly see through the illusion. Maybe even pick it up and learn the techniques themselves.

Kaito could think of only one particular person who could recreate such a thing as long as they had the props to do so, not needing any other's help in the idea of the act.

Twirling that single clover flower in his hand, Kaito worked his fingers to manipulate his surroundings and make a rose with petals of various shades take its place. He was getting a few by-standers interested in his skill, as indicated when they stopped to see what he was doing. But the amateur teen magician ignored them, watching the beginnings of a light red petal take its start of an unnatural existence.

Eyes trailed over to the entrance of the park, and Kaito reached into his pocket to take out his pocket watch with one hand and continue to twirl the stem for a light blue petal to add with the light red, orange, yellow, and green. Why a pocket watch? Because it fit with his gentleman image. And Kuroba Kaito was a gentleman. Well, depending on was asking.

Okay, so maybe his persona was more of the gentleman, but Kaito could still be classy if he wanted to.

The silver watch revealed the time to be a little past noon; he will soon be arriving.

The teen clasped shut the case, and looked back up to the entrance, keeping his eyes on it expectantly as his multihued rose was finally complete, much to the amazement of the crowd, erupting into applause at the trick. The amateur magician just shrugged it off, not caring as he waited for the only reason that he comes to the park. It was just to kill some time, and earn a few yens while he was at it.

Catching sight of a familiar chocolate cowlick, Kaito smiled as he put away his technicolor petal rose, much to the disappointment of the mini-crowd that had come to watch him perform before they dispersed, knowing that the show was over.

As he approached, Kaito bowed low to the ground, legs crossed and one arm held out with the other close to his chest, as if he were a jester in front of a king. "So glad you could make it."

Conan smiled as his feet skid to a halt in front of the performing magician, right in front of the teen's donation hat. The child smirked before kicking up the fedora on the floor with enough air to make it land atop of his head. Kaito whistled at the feat. "Nice!"

The chibi detective blushed, bowing his head in thanks as he mumbled one himself. The hat, which was filled with loose change, dropped the coins and few bills that pedestrians were kind enough to donate past Conan's ears and on the ground due to the lovely force of gravity. He raised an eyebrow, Kaito continuing to smile under his confusion. "There's actual money in here?" he asked, but Kaito just shrugged. Conan removed the fedora and dusted his hair of any excess money before examining the inside of the head accessory, brushing away anything else that may be inside. All the money that didn't fall was on the ground at this point, as well as another object that wasn't exactly a piece of currency. A piece of paper flew in the air, but Kaito quickly grabbed it and crumpled it before Conan could see what was written on it, placing it deep in his pocket, whistling softly and averting the child's gaze. But the detective will get back to that later, opting to check his watch instead. "It's only ten past noon! There was no way you can make this much in just ten minutes!"

The amateur magician chuckled. Kaito always starts performing at noon while waiting for Conan to escape his company to meet him at the park, as they promised since the chibi detective's birthday. The amount of time it took for him to get there varied. Ten minutes wasn't as fast as Conan would have liked, but he had to stop and get something along the way.

The teen went to pick up the loose change and placed it in his pocket, the one not containing the piece of paper. He counted the bills before breaking into a wide grin from his smirk earlier. "There's enough for me to treat you; let's get some ice cream while you tell me how you escaped this time." The chibi detective rolled his eyes, but nodded in compliance as they began to walk down the cobble-stoned path, holding hands as Conan lightly did a skip, much to Kaito's amusement.

"So this time, I simply told them that I had plans for this afternoon," Conan answered the request simply, and Kaito tilted his head.

"That's it?" he asked, and Conan nodded.

"That's it." And Kaito slightly frowned.

Kaito expected a story of epic proportions. Like with gunshots, explosions, reenactments of murders, dangerous, violent things of that variety. Or maybe even drama. Anything that had a soap-opera vibe of it. He knew that Conan would be fine - he's always fine. Somehow. After knowing him personally for a month, Kaito knew that nothing he would say would dissuade the chibi detective's passion for solving mysteries that somehow always tended to _always_ be of the death variety.

If there were one thing that came out of his heists, it was the fact that it gave the detective a break from his role as a shinigami.

But now that Kuroba Kaito knew Edogawa Conan, it was another excuse to keep him away from the cases of those people who thought that death was the answer to everything.

He squeezed Conan's hand tighter for a moment, causing for the child to look up to the teen but he was too caught up in his thoughts to catch the questioning look in the detective's eye.

The teen knew that the reason why he was not in school today was because Meitantei Mouri had a case considering the murder of a wealthy businessman that was believed to have ties to the shady underworld in the business industry who also involved a sexual scandal? At least, that was what Conan texted him this morning when requesting if the magician could meet him in the park today. Conan didn't really provide him much details, it was rather early. He expected there to be much of maneuvering from the child's schedule to arrange for him to meet the teen here today.

As for Kaito, he just simply cut school. Teachers welcomed it; they rather have it so that the prankster wasn't there to throw the school into chaos. He checked ahead, and Aoko will be able to provide him the details that he missed. Even if she didn't understand the circumstances, she was still willing to help him out. She was really too nice to him.

"That's boring," Kaito finally replied, and Conan shrugged.

"I don't think you'd care for the details," the child said, and when Kaito thought about it, no, he wouldn't care for the details. He never liked hearing what the detective had to say about the murder cases he had, since Kaito couldn't stop them from occurring no matter what.

"You're right," he said, the pair now in front of a mini-café in the park that sold soft serve ice cream which will suit their purpose just fine. "And today you asked me over this Thursday," Kaito mused, walking the child over to the ice cream shoppe. "Which flavor would you like?"

Conan looked at the menu, pondering on whether to have vanilla, chocolate, green tea, or black sesame, but Kaito already knew what he wanted. "Hmm, I can go for some vanilla." It's the same thing he ordered every time they went to order something sweet.

The teen nodded, and left the child to pick their table underneath the various parasols. He told the woman at the counter which flavors they wanted, ordering green tea for himself, and waited patiently for her to serve it to them as he paid with the loose change he was donated about fifteen minutes ago.

"You two come here every Saturday, any particular reason why to come today?" the lady asked curiously as she handed Kaito the cones. He figured that there was no harm in answering.

"I'm waiting for him to tell me," he answered, honestly not knowing himself. Still, he smiled at the woman, hoping that he had sated her curiosity as much as he could. "Thank you for the ice cream, as always."

"Of course," she winked. "See you both on Saturday!"

Kaito chuckled before quickly making his way back to the patient child, kicking his feet with his legs hanging from the chair, reaching out for his vanilla soft served and took a lick. The teen tried his own, the traditional Japanese flavor wasn't a flavor he picked often, but he liked to switch it up.

The two sat in silence for a moment, taking their time to finish the ice cream. Kaito narrowed his eyes at how quickly the child finished his dessert, with Kaito about halfway through it.

"So, for what reason have you summoned me here?" Kaito asked, looking over to the child who crumpled the paper holder that the cone was sporting and placed it on the table.

"I know how to do a magic trick," Conan said quietly. "I'd like to show you since it would only work for today." The magician widened his eyes, face first showing his confusion but then smirked to show his excitement.

"Oh? Do tell."

Conan opened his mouth, but said nothing as he looked up to the sky, watching the stormy clouds. "Well, I don't want to ruin anything," he said, reaching out for his bag and rummaged around for something.

Kaito held his hands up in defense, taking great care to drop any of his frozen treat. "Alright, alright." He continued to smile, grinning cheek to cheek from his giddiness. "I'm really excited though; you should have told me that you were taking up magic. I could have shown you some things."

Really, he was surprised. Kaito had been teaching Conan how to perform his scarce various tricks when the child arrived. The child never actually did anything during the acts - besides being the fabulous assistant, he opted to stay in the sidelines when Kaito was asked to provide some entertainment to the people. He made sure to keep it short, preferring to spend time with Conan than with random strangers for their amusement.

And by teaching, he means performing and Conan being able to pick it up after a few screenings of the acts he's put on for the crowd.

"Yeah," Conan said distractedly, still looking in his bag. "I wanted to check it out for my demonstration for you."

Kaito tilted his head. "Demonstration?"

"U-um," Conan faltered, still shuffling around in his bag for that object he needed. "Give me a few moments; it's temperamental."

Kaito nodded, waiting patiently for the detective to become a magician.

"Ah, wait; I have a lead-up!" Conan looked up to the sky, still waiting. He looked back down in his bag, and Kaito just peered over to catch the light of a LED screen glowing inside. The child quickly pushed it away, so Kaito was unable to see what exactly the screen portrayed. "Just-Just give me a moment," he requested before he closed his bag and looked high to the sky, clearing his throat.

"Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts." He held out a finger. "The first part is called 'The Pledge'. The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man." He waved to the sky. "He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course… it probably isn't."

Kaito waited patiently, knowing that it was very difficult to manipulate the sky and was interested in what the child wanted to do.

Conan held out two fingers. "The second act is called 'The Turn'. The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary." He pulled on the string that Kaito didn't notice before that was connected to the parasol, and it fell, enveloping the pair in darkness.

"Now you're looking for the secret," Conan continued, "but you won't find it, because of course you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn't clap yet. Because making something disappear isn't enough; you have to bring it back. That's why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call 'The Prestige.' "

Kaito couldn't see what Conan did, but in a flash the lights turned back on and Kaito realized that they were caught in a light rain shower.

Oh… He didn't know how else to put it. "Umm," Kaito started hesitantly, "Making it rain isn't magic."

Conan gave that famous dubious look of his. "Of course it's not," he said, deadpanned. "I said it's temperamental." He looked up to the sky. "Just, give it a minute."

Kaito fell silent, still interested in what the child had to show him. Conan kept raising his hand out to the rain, it starting to stop.

"There!"

Conan pointed up to the sky. Kaito looked up to check the clouds to find a rainbow high in the air arcing overhead.

Cerulean eyes twinkled. "Pretty." He abruptly turned to Conan, a calculating look in his eye. "You…you're not going to cut off into the scientific aspect of it, are you?"

"You mean, the fact that rainbows are optical illusions and do not exist, with the white light splitting into its component colors when passed through a prism, and if those bands of light were to pass through another and rejoin, they make a white beam and its characteristic colors range from low to high red, orange, yellow green, cyan, blue, and violet?" Conan asked without a hitch, smiling slightly waning.

Kaito pointed at him. "Yes, _exactly_ like that."

Conan sighed. "Not what I was going for, but I guess it works. Here." He handed a bouquet of dew covered clovers with a four leaf one in the middle. Kaito blinked.

"Did not expect that." He took the handed bouquet, and blinked once more when Conan held a red rose to his face right behind the green flowers, glasses slightly lopsided above the smile on his face. "That either."

Conan smirked. "It's all about distractions, remember?" He snorted. "Weather is too unpredictable for my taste. So improv will have to do."

"Can I ask you question?" Kaito asked out of the blue, twirling at the rose he was given, blinked when Conan handed him the technicolored flower he had synthesized earlier. "Where did you get this?"

Conan shrugged. "Is that what you wanted to ask me?"

Kaito frowned. "I only get one question?"

"Does this answer it?" Conan retorted.

"For what reason did you summon me here?" Kaito asked; the question was nagging on the back of his mind and he really needed to know.

It was silent for a few moments, with the water trickling from the background. Conan frowned, turned to it and Kaito could see the mist it formed gave the rainbow they viewed just a few moments before. "Watch this first." The child removed his glasses and adjusted them to the light, reflecting the spectrum to make another rainbow, a double rainbow to shine on the table.

"Just work with me, if you will." He cleared his throat, making it high pitched and more childish. "Rainbows connect the sky and the earth." He pointed to Kaito, picking up his hand and placing it where one of the rainbows on the table was placed. "You're the sky." He pointed to himself and placed his hand on the reflection of the other arc of color. "I'm the earth." He moved his glasses and connected the teen and his own hands together to be intertwined with one another's, Kaito's clearly much larger and overtook Conan's smaller one. "This rainbow connects us!" he exclaimed, smiling wide.

It was quiet, nothing said between the two before Kaito snickered, it breaking into a laugh soon enough. Conan frowned, blushing madly. He tried to retract his hand, but Kaito refused to release it, squeezing it tight.

The magician needed a few moments to recover."Wha-what in the hell was that?" he cackled, wiping a tear away from his eye. He took a deep breath, calming down a bit. "What was that?"

Conan couldn't meet his gaze. "I-I was trying to do what you told me! I figured I could try for your birthday."

Kaito immediately froze. "F-for my birthday?"

"You told me, on my birthday, that I should try to act more childish. So I tried." The child shook his head as he replaced his glasses. "_Never_ gonna do that again."

"O-oh." He smiled, pulling the child next to him into a hug. "You didn't need to do such a thing for me. Your maturity is what makes you who you are, and no one can ever take that away from you."

Conan said nothing, averting his gaze.

"Thank you," Kaito whispered. He had totally forgotten it was his birthday. Oh…_that _was why Aoko was so stubborn to stay with him.

He was touched that Conan would do such a thing when he was pretty sure he never told him it was his birthday.

"How did you know?" he asked, curious on how the child knew it was his date of birth, when it had completely slipped his mind.

"I'm a _detective_," he murmured softly, "It's what I do."

"Ahaha," Kaito laughed dryly. "As if I could forget."

* * *

A/N: I think I'm late… Nooo!

A day late, I tried my best to finish as soon as I can, but my internet was messing me up.

It…is _way _more bittersweet than I thought it would turn out, and the writing style's different from _Optical Illusions_, but I digress.

Happy birthday Kaito!

Thanks for reading!


End file.
